SUMERIAN

Introduction
1.3 Dialects
As every language, spoken Sumerian too must have had several different local
and temporal varieties. We, however, know, the language only from written
sources, and consequently most of these variations went lost forever. We have
access only to a written, formal version of Sumerian whose traits and history
may be very different from the traits and history of the vernacular. Yet, it is
also possible that the traits of the local dialects are reflected in local scribal
traditions in the Old Sumerian and Old Akkadian periods. During the second
half of the 3rd millennium BCE two main traditions can be distinguished, the
Northern (Nippur, Adab, Isin) and the Southern Sumerian (Lagash, Umma, Ur,
Uruk) dialects.
In the Old Sumerian period, only a handful of differences among the two
dialects can be detected: the vowel harmony of the verbal prefixes in the
southern cities (see Lesson 2 section 2.2. below), the use of the finite-marker
prefix /a(l)/ in a passive sense in the north Babylonian cities (see Lesson 11,
section 11.1. below), and the use of the comitative case in the function of the
terminative in the 25th century, for example. During the Old Akkadian period,
most of these distinctive features disappear, only the distinctive passive
markers are retained. Additionally, a new dialectal difference emerges, namely
the voiceless aspirated affricate /ts h / — the /dr/ phoneme in the earlier
literature — becomes /r/ in Southern but /d/ in Northern Sumerian (see Lesson
2, section 2.1 below)
By the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, with the rise of the Ur III dynasty,
the local traditions are not reflected in the written language any more. The
Sumerian language was standardised in a form related to Southern Sumerian
and this written variety also spread in the northern area of Sumer (cf. Drehem
sources). The only place where texts with the features of the Northern dialect
or with mixed features come from was Nippur. The proof that the
standardisation of Sumerian only occurred on the level of the written language
is provided by the Old Babylonian Sumerian which preserved many features of
Northern Sumerian. As the centre of power moved to the north, this is also
reflected in the formal, written language.
A unique variety of Sumerian which should also be mentioned here is
a sociolect known under the Sumerian term eme–sal (meaning probably “fine
tongue”). The eme–sal dialect is characterised by phonological alteration and
by limited lexical substitution, that is, the morphological and syntactical rules
of Sumerian remain intact, the difference only appears on the level of the
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